Center for American ProgressEarly Childhood – Center for American Progresshttps://www.americanprogress.org
Progressive ideas for a strong, just, and free AmericaThu, 17 Aug 2017 20:51:03 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5-alpha-35869RELEASE: New CAP Brief Details Long-Term Impact on Young Children from Trump Mass Deportation Policyhttps://www.americanprogress.org/press/release/2017/07/31/436816/release-new-cap-brief-details-long-term-impact-young-children-trump-mass-deportation-policy/
Mon, 31 Jul 2017 14:06:58 +0000https://www.americanprogress.org/press//2017/07/27/436816//Washington, D.C. — A new issue brief from the Center for American Progress details the toxic stress suffered by young children as a result of the Trump administration’s brutal immigration policies. By breaking families apart, instilling fear in immigrant communities, and preventing families from accessing programs that meet children’s most basic needs, the fear of deportation […]

]]>Washington, D.C. — A new issue brief from the Center for American Progress details the toxic stress suffered by young children as a result of the Trump administration’s brutal immigration policies. By breaking families apart, instilling fear in immigrant communities, and preventing families from accessing programs that meet children’s most basic needs, the fear of deportation is causing children emotional distress and economic insecurity that may well interfere with healthy development and derail their future success.

“The administration’s mass deportation agenda evidences a striking disregard for the emotional and physical well-being of America’s young children and, as a result, our country’s own future. These wrongheaded policies will do long-term damage to children’s development and also to our nation’s current and future workforce,” said Tom Jawetz, vice president of immigration policy at CAP.

The threat of parental separation—experienced even by children whose parents have lawful immigration status—can cause toxic, long-term stress in young children. This prolonged stress can change brain architecture and negatively alter physical, cognitive, and emotional development, making children less equipped to deal with everyday instances of adversity on the playground and in the classroom.

Children may also face secondhand stress from their parents, who may fear deportation of themselves or a family member. Similarly, parental stress can affect maternal health and health outcomes for infants. This is further compounded by barriers to healthy food and proper medical care.

In unauthorized communities, individuals tend to underenroll in public programs that can help young children thrive—such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children; Medicaid; or Head Start—out of a fear of interacting with public institutions.

“No child, regardless of their family’s immigration status, should live with the fear that their loved ones will be torn away from them at a moment’s notice. The culture of fear created by mass deportation has significant consequences for young children and could undermine their ability to thrive. Trump’s mass deportation agenda will have a lasting impact on our nation’s future students, workforce, and leaders,” said Leila Schochet, research associate for the Early Childhood Policy team at CAP.

The enduring impact of stress and barriers to support can have long-term consequences for the American economy. Those who face adversity during early childhood—such as trauma, separation from a parent, or deep poverty—are more likely to have poor health, drop out of high school, be unemployed, and live in poverty in adulthood. These outcomes can lower job prospects and inhibit people’s ability to reach their full potential in the workforce, representing a lost opportunity for the economy.

]]>Trump’s Cuts to Lead Abatement Programs Will Hurt Children Mosthttps://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/news/2017/07/24/436475/trumps-cuts-lead-abatement-programs-will-hurt-children/
Mon, 24 Jul 2017 13:01:09 +0000Cristina Novoahttps://www.americanprogress.org/issues/default/news/2017/07/21/436475//President Trump’s changes to the Environmental Protection Agency will dismantle programs that protect young children from lead paint.

]]>Playing on the floor of her Flint, Michigan, home, 8-year-old Nadia Baylor suddenly grows serious when she talks about the water. “The water is poison,” she says unflinchingly. Baylor’s story, as reported by CNN, spotlights the lead-tainted drinking water crisis that has become synonymous with her hometown. Sadly, it may soon be a common story outside Flint as well.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has proposed changes to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that undercut lead abatement programs and profoundly affect the lives of all Americans. However, young children will feel these proposed changes most acutely. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle programs that protect children from lead exposure.

Children are more likely than adults to be exposed to lead and more vulnerable to its effects

Lead is a neurotoxin that impairs central nervous system function when ingested, absorbed through the skin, or inhaled. Although it’s common to think of lead as lurking in aging water pipes, flaking house paint, and industrial emissions, children can be exposed to lead before birth, when their developing brains are most at risk. If a woman has been exposed to lead, her bones can store it for decades, releasing it into her bloodstream and her developing fetus’s body during pregnancy.

Once born, babies can swallow lead in contaminated food, water, breast milk, dust, and dirt. In fact, activity that is developmentally appropriate for babies—crawling on the floor, putting new objects into their mouths—makes them more likely than adults to consume dangerous levels of lead, especially in homes containing lead-based paints.

In addition to being more likely than adults to ingest lead, children absorb several times more lead than adults. Most lead that adults ingest—about 99 percent—leaves the body as waste in a matter of days. In contrast, children excrete only 32 percent of the lead they swallow.

The impact of lead on children’s development is devastating

Once consumed, the effects of lead on children’s growth, behavior, and cognitive performance poses a serious public health concern. Research has linked early childhood lead exposure to a range of negative outcomes such as lower IQ scores and behavior problems in childhood, for example, inattentiveness, hyperactivity, and aggression. These behavioral problems can lay the ground for future consequences, including school suspension and even incarceration. Perhaps most troubling is that lead is more common in older homes where people of color, immigrants, refugees, and lower-income families tend to live. This pattern of increased exposure to lead reinforces disparities that already exist in early childhood. However, the effects of lead on children’s development persist even after controlling for these risk factors.

For example, a 2013 study demonstrated that even students with low blood lead levels—below the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for “blood lead level of concern”—during early childhood were less likely than students with no discernable blood level levels (BLL) to reach proficiency in standardized tests in elementary and middle school. This effect held even after taking into account risk factors such as race, maternal education, and family socio-economic status.

The significance of these findings is twofold. First, this study shows that the effects of early lead exposure lasts years: Children’s BLL levels were collected from birth to age 6, but the impact of early lead exposure persisted through early adolescence. Second, this study also shows that even low levels of lead negatively affect children’s development. This last finding underscores a point many physicians and public health specialists have raised: The only truly safe level of lead in children’s bodies is zero.

Scientists have studied the adverse health effects of lead for decades, and their research has led to stronger regulatory protections. The CDC has found that blood lead levels have declined over the past 30 years, most likely due to coordinated efforts by governments, health care, and social service providers. However, President Donald Trump’s proposed changes to the EPA will slash funds for two federal programs that protect children from lead exposure, a move that threatens to reverse decades of public health improvements.

The first program to be cut, the Lead Risk Reduction Program, educates Americans about how to reduce lead exposure in their homes and certifies renovators who work in buildings that may contain lead-based paints. Trump’s plan cuts funding for the program by $2.5 million and nearly 73 full-time employees. Moreover, Trump’s plan nearly eliminates a second program that gives funds to state and tribal organizations to develop their own lead abatement and renovation education programs. All of this is in addition to cuts in Department of Housing and Urban Development Agency (HUD) programs that make housing safer by updating aging infrastructure, including replacing older pipes and safely removing or painting over lead-based paint.

Beyond cuts to these two lead-paint programs, Trump’s plans for the EPA also include reducing funding and staff for the agency’s drinking water programs. Indeed, the EPA is looking to decrease grants that help states monitor public water systems from $102 million to $71 million. Currently, the nation’s public water infrastructure still contains between 3.3 million and 10 million lead pipes that can leach lead into tap water, which makes events such as the Flint, Michigan, water crisis more likely to happen again.

Proponents of the funding cuts—including representatives from the EPA—argue that the goal is to return funding responsibility to state and local entities, a move they believe will improve program implementation. However, only 14 states currently run programs to train contractors how to properly handle renovations involving lead paint. The rest rely on federal programs to provide training, meaning that Trump’s plan would leave children in dozens of states unprotected.

Conclusion

President Trump claims to support families and the working class. However, his cuts to the EPA threaten the health of all Americans, especially lower-income families living in older homes with lead-based paints. Although Congress will have to approve the proposed cuts for them to take effect, the message they send is worrying. Trump’s EPA changes—and specifically his plans that undercut programs to prevent lead exposure—will have tremendous costs for the youngest Americans. If he wants to protect the United States’ future and put America first, Trump needs to support programs that protect children’s health.

Cristina Novoa is a policy analyst for Early Childhood Policy at the Center for American Progress.

]]>When President Donald Trump rolled out a budget that would cut Medicaid in half, slash programs for people with disabilities, make it harder to pay for college, and decimate civil rights enforcement—all while advocating huge tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations—even some congressional Republicans declared the Trump budget to be “dead on arrival.” But if the Trump budget were ever dead, it has been brought back to life. The recently released budget from House Republican leaders revives the worst parts of the Trump budget.

A congressional budget resolution—such as the House of Representatives’ budget—does not become law as is. But the House’s budget still matters, for two primary reasons. First, it sets an overall spending level for the coming fiscal year, 2018, that is too low to support core investments in American families and communities. Second, it paves the way for congressional Republicans to fast-track deep cuts to a wide range of programs that everyday Americans rely on, while funneling huge tax cuts to the wealthy—all without a single Democratic vote.

Here are eight ways the House budget will harm workers and families while helping the rich get richer.

A Trojan horse to give tax cuts to the wealthy

The House budget is designed to cuts taxes for the wealthy and corporations on the backs of working families. The tax plan released in 2016 as the centerpiece of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) “A Better Way” agenda would have given away trillions of dollars in tax cuts, a staggering 99.6 percent of which would go to the top 1 percent of income earners in 2025. President Trump’s tax plan, which is similarly skewed to benefit the wealthiest Americans, would cost even more—at least $3.5 trillion and as much as $7.8 trillion—according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

The House budget calls for tax reform that is broadly consistent with the “Better Way” and Trump tax plans—cutting top tax rates and corporate taxes and moving to a territorial tax system in which U.S. multinational corporations pay no U.S. taxes on their overseas profits. Notably, under the House budget, tax cut legislation must be deficit neutral but not revenue neutral—meaning that tax cuts can be paid for with cuts to programs such as Medicare or safety net programs. The House budget sets the stage for fast-tracking these tax cuts through a process known as budget reconciliation. Because reconciliation is not subject to filibusters in the Senate, this would allow congressional Republicans to send to the president’s desk massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations—paid for by deep cuts to programs that serve everyday Americans—without a single Democratic vote.

The reconciliation instructions also enable Congress to make further cuts to the programs that help Americans afford a basic standard of living. The budget instructs congressional committees to cut at least $203 billion over 10 years from programs in their purview, which could include Medicare, Medicaid, disability programs, and nutrition assistance. The only good news is that budget rules prohibit cutting Social Security using the budget reconciliation process, which includes Social Security Disability Insurance. But the House budget would let Congress cut many other vital programs without a single Democratic vote.

In addition to budget reconciliation, the House budget also sets the stage for significant cuts to programs such as affordable housing and environmental protection by cutting nondefense discretionary spending below the levels that would be imposed by sequestration. Congress funds discretionary programs each year in appropriations bills, and the domestic and international affairs programs included in the nondefense budget would already face harsh cuts if sequestration is allowed to take effect. While the House budget cuts to nondefense discretionary programs are not as harsh as the ones in the Trump budget, it would be a huge mistake to allow the outrageous cuts in the Trump budget to reframe the boundaries of an acceptable budget and to distract from the fact that the nondefense spending cap must be increased above sequestration levels. If the cap is not increased, there will not be enough funds to provide anything close to a reasonable allocation for programs that invest in the economy and ensure a basic standard of living.

Deeply cuts Medicaid, Medicare, and women’s health

The House budget would cut funding for Medicare by $487 billion over 10 years and cut Medicaid and other health care programs by $1.5 trillion over the same period. By ending the traditional Medicaid financing guarantee and replacing it with a per capita cap or block grant model in which federal funding is capped on a per-person or per-state basis, the budget would significantly shrink Medicaid and leave millions fewer people covered by the program.

The House budget includes the Medicaid per capita cap and block grant proposals from the House’s American Health Care Act (AHCA), but it also makes additional cuts to Medicaid beyond those included in the House and Senate repeal bills. The Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), in the latest form that has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), would cut $772 billion from Medicaid over 10 years and leave 15 million fewer people covered by Medicaid in 2026. These cuts would become even more extreme in the second decade, since the BCRA increases the severity of its Medicaid cuts in 2025. Overall, the BCRA would result in 22 million people losing coverage over 10 years, according to the most recent CBO score. These estimates, including a breakdown of the Medicaid and private insurance coverage losses, are available for all states and congressional districts here.

Furthermore, the House’s budget proposes a mandatory work requirement for Medicaid coverage, alongside other harmful changes to eligibility, benefits, and cost-sharing in Medicaid. Work requirements in Medicaid would not create jobs or make it easier for beneficiaries to find employment; rather, they would make it harder for struggling families to get back on their feet by taking away their health coverage.

These cuts would be nothing short of devastating for the millions of people who depend on Medicaid for essential health coverage and services, including children, seniors, low-income individuals, and people with disabilities. In particular, women—including teenage girls who are at least 15 years old—accounted for 19.4 million of those enrolled in Medicaid in 2011 and would be disproportionately affected by cuts to the program. Currently, Medicaid covers about half of all births in the country. Additionally, the program has been instrumental in ensuring that low-income women and women of color, who are disproportionately likely to be covered by Medicaid, have access to a host of reproductive health services, including family planning, screening for breast and cervical cancer, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. Medicaid has also helped ensure access to maternity care for women at increased risk for poor maternal health outcomes. Any effort to withhold Medicaid reimbursements from Planned Parenthood—or other measures to defund women’s health services—would compound the impact of these cuts and have a devastating effect on women seeking access to services from this trusted health care provider.

In addition, the House budget would transform Medicare from a system in which seniors are guaranteed certain levels of coverage to a premium support system in which seniors would have capped amounts of funding to purchase either a private plan or traditional Medicare. Since the value of these premium support payments would likely fail to keep pace with the growth in health costs, this would significantly shift costs to seniors over time.

Slashes education and training and kicks jobless workers while they’re down

The House budget would make a 25 percent cut to programs within the category of education, training, employment, and social services. While the House budget provides little detail about how it would affect specific education and training programs, what is known is that its cuts are nearly as dramatic as the 28 percent cut to these programs presented in the Trump budget. To carry out their budget, the House would thus either need to implement the vast majority of education and training cuts in the Trump budget or cut some of these programs even more deeply than the Trump budget proposes in order to avoid cuts elsewhere. Examples of the draconian education cuts in Trump’s budget include eliminating critical funding for school districts and teachers through the Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants program and zeroing out the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program that provides after-school and summer learning for 1.8 million students nationwide.

The House budget would also make it harder for millions of students and families to afford college and would force them to turn to accumulating ever-higher levels of debt. Like the Trump budget, an appropriations bill that has already been drafted to comply with this budget would freeze the maximum Pell Grant award—a grant that provides low-income students with funding to afford college—at its current level of $5,920. If tuition trends continue and the Pell Grant remains frozen at its current award, the maximum Pell Grant would cover just 23 percent of tuition by 2026, down from 30 percent today. Click here for a state breakdown of how a Pell Grant freeze would affect college affordability.

In addition, the spending bill written under this budget would slash $3.3 billion from the Pell Grant’s surplus—a rainy day fund that can cover future cost increases. The budget also references additional cuts that ensure that “grants go to students with the most need” and that “students complete school in a timely manner.” Though the exact terms of what this means are not clear, this will likely translate to eligibility reductions or other restrictions that make it harder for students to get Pell Grants.

Other parts of the budget could be bad news for student loan borrowers. The budget contains instructions for the Education and Workforce Committee to save $20 billion through reconciliation. And language in the budget blueprint suggests that student loan programs may be a target for these savings. The blueprint calls for streamlining the number of repayment and loan options students face. While making federal loan options simpler is a valuable goal, these principles are typically used to justify making student loans more expensive for borrowers. For example, the Trump budget proposed to “streamline” federal loans by cutting $143 billion over 10 years through targeting loans that do not accumulate interest while students are in school, public-servant loan forgiveness, and repayment options where borrowers pay based on their income.

These changes would have the greatest impact on the most vulnerable students. Today, students from low- and middle-income families and students of color need to borrow more frequently and graduate with significantly higher debt than wealthier students. These students are particularly vulnerable to cuts to Pell Grants. For example, in 2012, 61 percent of black students and 50 percent of Latino students relied on Pell Grants to attend college compared with 38 percent of white students. Congress should focus on protecting and expanding student aid, not cutting it.

Similar to the Trump budget, the House budget explicitly calls for eliminating so-called duplicative job training programs just three years after nearly every member of Congress voted to pass the bipartisan Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), legislation that modernized and streamlined the nation’s workforce development system. WIOA already eliminated 15 programs and elevated best practices such as apprenticeship programs, industry-led sector partnerships, and career pathways. The House Budget Committee does not specify which programs would be on the chopping block.

Recent Center for American Progress analysis demonstrates that cuts to workforce development programs would be devastating for workers. For example, CAP estimates that under the Trump budget, cuts to the WIOA could result in 5.5 million workers losing access to critical employment and training services such as job search assistance, job training, and career development. Workers would likely fare similarly under the House budget and would find themselves with fewer avenues to access programs that help them find work.

Adding insult to injury, rather than helping workers obtain the skills they need to get ahead, the House budget would kick struggling workers while they’re down by taking nutrition assistance and Medicaid away from unemployed and underemployed workers, no matter how hard they may be looking for work. Research shows that far from helping struggling individuals successfully get back into the labor market, taking away someone’s food, shelter, or health insurance actually makes it harder for them to find and keep a job.

Meanwhile, the budget’s deep cuts to Medicaid and nutrition assistance wouldn’t just undermine basic living standards—they would also kill jobs. Every $1 billion dollars in spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), for example, enables more than 13,000 Americans to find or keep their jobs each year, according to a 2012 study, and each dollar spent on the program’s benefits generates additional economic activity of about $1.20 to $1.80 in local communities. Similarly, Medicaid accounts for more than 1 in 6 dollars spent on health care—and helps support millions of jobs at hospitals and other medical service providers. By slashing SNAP and Medicaid while simultaneously introducing work requirements into these programs, the House budget would thus kill jobs at the same time as it would pull the rug out from under unemployed and underemployed workers.

Cuts Social Security for people with disabilities

President Trump’s budget broke his promise to not cut Social Security, and the House budget doubles down on this betrayal, proposing $4 billion in cuts to Social Security benefits over the next decade. The budget targets Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). Specifically, the budget proposes preventing unemployed workers with disabilities from receiving both the SSDI and unemployment insurance benefits they have earned. This proposal would reduce economic security for workers with disabilities who have lost a job through no fault of their own, as well as their families.

Though the House budget does not specifically propose cutting Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a program that helps older or disabled individuals with very little income meet basic living standards, it is still at risk. The budget instructs policy makers to cut at least $203 billion over the next ten years from a variety of programs—cuts that are likely to include SSI. Cutting SSI would be especially harmful to people living in rural areas, who have higher rates of disability. Click here for a breakdown of people with disabilities by Congressional district.

Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin further walked back President Trump’s promise to not cut Social Security recently, telling Congress that changing the program is “within your prerogative.” If Congress passes Social Security cuts, President Trump may sign those into law. While SSDI cannot be cut via reconciliation, the reconciliation instructions in the House budget would enable Congress to cut SSI without any Democratic votes.

Makes deep cuts to affordable housing programs

The House budget fails to keep pace with rising housing needs and would force deeper cuts to critical affordable housing programs in the years to come. With a reduction in the overall amount of nondefense discretionary spending, appropriators have underfunded rental assistance, homelessness prevention, affordable housing development, and funds that address health and safety hazards in public housing. For instance, housing advocates estimate that this budget would lead to 140,000 fewer housing choice vouchers next year. At a time when Congress should be spending more to meet the growing need, appropriators have their hands tied and will be under enormous pressure to spend less over the next decade.

About 20.2 million renting households are cost-burdened, meaning that they spend more than 30 percent of their monthly pay on rent. For 10.4 million renting households, housing costs absorb more than 50 percent of their income, thus leaving very few financial resources for nonshelter necessities. Click here for a breakdown of cost-burdened households by congressional district.

Slashes nutrition assistance for workers and families

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program provides modest but critical food assistance that helps millions of families put food on the table. Nearly 9 in 10 SNAP recipients live in households where one or more members are disabled, elderly, or a child. (See how many households SNAP helped in your Congressional District last year here.) SNAP benefits are already quite low, averaging just $1.39 per person per meal, and 4 in 5 families can’t stretch them beyond the first two weeks of the month.

Nonetheless, like the Trump budget—which proposed axing SNAP by a staggering 29 percent, or $193 billion, over the coming decade—the House budget would essentially end the program as we know it. As in House budgets in years past, the fiscal year 2018 budget proposal would slash SNAP, likely by converting its funding into a block grant under the pretext of providing greater flexibility to states. A block-grant structure would cap SNAP’s funding at insufficient levels, forcing benefit cuts and hampering the program’s ability to respond to families’ basic needs—particularly during recessions, when the share of families who struggle to put food on the table tends to rise steeply. And as noted above, House Republicans also followed Trump’s lead in making SNAP time limits for unemployed and underemployed workers even harsher under the guise of work requirements. Rather than investing in jobs and raising wages, this budget proposes taking food away from families struggling to find work.

Cuts core infrastructure funding that would leave the nation’s highway and public transportation systems to crumble

The proposed House budget also calls for the immediate elimination of the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) Discretionary Grant program as well as a significant reduction in funding for Amtrak, placing long-distance routes in jeopardy. The budget would also reduce and then eliminate the New Starts program, which provides funds for local public transit projects, once current grant agreements have been completed.

Additionally, the House budget calls for cutting the Transportation budget function by one-quarter over 10 years, which is roughly the same amount as President Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget. The administration achieved this by calling for major cuts to core highway and transit formula programs funded out of the Highway Trust Fund. If the House chooses to take the same approach, CAP estimates that more than 250,000 jobs could be eliminated by 2027. A state breakdown of these funding cuts and job losses is available here.

Finally, the CBO confirmed that President Trump’s FY 2018 budget cuts roughly a dollar of infrastructure spending for every dollar set aside for an ill-defined initiative focused mostly on providing tax cuts to wealthy Wall Street equity investors, as opposed to funding real projects. The House budget could not even muster this level of effort. Instead, the House budget simply authorizes a deficit-neutral reserve account for infrastructure on the off chance that the House takes the issue up later. Sadly, this budget shows that Republicans are more focused on showering the rich with tax cuts and taking health care away from tens of millions of Americans than on making productive investments that will help to grow our economy for decades to come.

Undermines environmental protections that keep our air and water clean

The House budget resolution cuts nearly 28 percent from environment and natural resources programs, which include the work of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The House budget follows in the footsteps of the Trump budget, which cuts environment and natural resources programs by 27 percent over the next decade. While the House budget does not detail how much each program would be cut, the result would likely be similar to the Trump budget, which proposed slashing the EPA budget by 31 percent.

The EPA serves a vital role as the nation’s top environmental watchdog. By gutting the agency budget, the House of Representatives and President Trump are trying to make it easier for bad actors to pump more pollution into our air and water. As air quality worsens, the nearly 22 million Americans with asthma will suffer (state breakdown available here). These budget cuts will also slow the cleanup of some of the worst toxic waste sites around the country, which are littered in nearly every congressional district.

Cuts to the environment and natural resources budget function also would likely damage the National Park Service, which oversees national parks and recreation areas visited by millions of Americans every year. The outdoor economy—which depends on clean air, clean water, and America’s unique natural heritage—generates $887 billion in consumer spending each year and supports 7.6 million jobs.

The House budget resolution also cuts $43 billion over 10 years from energy programs—only slightly less draconian than the Trump budget’s $64 billion cut to these programs. The House budget explicitly calls for “significantly reducing” funding for the commercialization and deployment of the advanced energy technologies, which will put the United States at a competitive disadvantage to countries such as China. Similarly, the Trump budget proposed cutting energy efficiency and renewable energy research and development funding by 69 percent, which would slow the momentum of the clean energy economy—home to the fastest-growing professions in the United States.

Conclusion

The Trump budget was never truly dead on arrival. One lawmaker who did not call the budget “dead on arrival” was Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who said that President Trump shared “common objectives” with Congress. The House budget reveals how true this is. The common objective of President Trump and Speaker Ryan is to pass huge tax cuts for the wealthy that are paid for by slashing programs that create good jobs and maintain basic living standards for everyone else. And the House budget would enable President Trump and Congress to turn this agenda into the law of the land without needing any Democratic votes.

Harry Stein is the director of fiscal policy at the Center for American Progress. Rebecca Vallas is the managing director of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center. Thomas Huelskoetter is a research associate on the Health team, and Jamila Taylor is a senior fellow for the Women’s Health and Rights Program at the Center. Neil Campbell is the director of innovation for the K-12 Education Policy team, and Angela Hanks is the associate director for workforce development policy at the Center. Katherine Gallagher Robbins is director of family policy for the Poverty to Prosperity Program. Michela Zonta is a policy analyst for Housing Policy, and Sarah Edelman is director of Housing Policy at the Center. Rachel West is an associate director of the Poverty to Prosperity Program. Kevin DeGood is director of infrastructure at the Center, and Alison Cassady is director of domestic energy and environment policy on the Center’s Energy and Environment Policy team. Seth Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Center. Antoinette Flores is a policy analyst on the Postsecondary Education team at the Center. Andrew Schwartz is a research associate on the Economic Policy team at the Center.

Quality rating and improvement systems, or QRIS, “assess, improve, and communicate the level of quality in early care and education settings.”1 These state systems can be designed for use by all types of early childhood programs—child care centers, family child care homes, Head Start programs, and school-based preschool programs. States can make participation entirely voluntary, or they can make participation mandatory for certain providers, such as those that accept public funding or all programs that are licensed to operate in the state.

Why are QRIS necessary?

Only 10 percent of early childhood providers across the United States are considered high quality,2 and children from low-income families and minority families are more likely to be in lower-quality care.3 QRIS offer a framework to:

Increase the availability of high-quality programs

Deliver ongoing professional development and quality improvement supports to providers

Strengthen parent understanding of program quality and the importance of high-quality child care and preschool

How common are they?

QRIS were developed in the late 1990s, in large part as a way to direct higher child care subsidy reimbursement rates to higher-quality programs. As of 2017, 49 states and the District of Columbia either have statewide or regional QRIS; are engaged in a pilot phase; or are planning for QRIS. In the past 15 years, QRIS have seen a significant expansion—both because of requirements under the federal Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge grant4 and in response to a growing body of research on early brain development that highlights the importance of high-quality early learning.5

What do QRIS do?

Rate early childhood programs: Programs are rated on a scale, usually with three or five steps, stars, or levels. Each state QRIS is unique, but there are several common domains, or standards, across which programs are rated. The most commonly assessed areas in QRIS are:

Staff qualifications and training

Curriculum

Environment and interactions

Family partnerships

Program administration

Health and safety

Child assessment

Direct quality improvement supports: These can be financial in nature—providing bonuses or higher reimbursement rates to reward programs for achieving a high-quality rating or to incentive them to reach a higher rating. They also can take the form of direct assistance to programs, including access to professional development, coaching, mentoring, or technical assistance navigating the QRIS process itself.

Inform parents about quality: QRIS provide parents with details about the quality level of early childhood programs, as well as educating parents and communities about the importance of high-quality child care and preschool in general. This requires communicating the actual rating levels through websites, events, and flyers—but also ensuring parents understand the differences between ratings so that they can make fully informed decisions about their child’s care.

What do QRIS look like across the United States?

Participation rates are low.

While three QRIS report 100 percent of eligible providers are participating, in many QRIS, participation is low. In 17 QRIS, less than 50 percent of child care centers participate. Among family child care providers, participation is less than 50 percent in in 23 systems.

Most QRIS offer financial incentives to improve quality.

Almost 85 percent of QRIS offer some form of financial incentives, with quality awards and bonuses being the most widespread type.

Technical assistance is widely available for participating providers.

Nearly three-quarters of QRIS report that technical assistance is available to all participating providers. Among those QRIS that target their technical assistance support to certain providers, they are most often targeted to programs that serve a significant percentage of low-income children or programs in high-need communities.

]]>As the old parenting adage goes, “The days are long, but the years are short.” Before you know it, that helpless little bundle of joy you brought home from the hospital is crawling around exploring the world, then talking and asking questions—constantly—and suddenly kindergarten is on the horizon. Every parent faces the same worries: Will my child be successful? Will they be happy? What can I do to make sure they are ready for everything life will throw at them? No parent wants their child to start school at a disadvantage, and increasingly, parents are realizing the critical role that child care and preschool can play in ensuring their child is ready for school and life. But this realization is often tempered by the daunting prospect of finding a good child care program or preschool and figuring out what exactly makes a good program.

Research shows that parents place a high value on quality but often don’t have enough information to evaluate their options, or they are limited by practical constraints, such as availability, accessibility, and affordability.1 Either way, the search for child care is often overwhelming. In almost every state, however, parents have access to an early childhood program rating system to help navigate their options. These rating systems provide a tool for parents to find child care and preschool programs that meet a set of quality criteria. While the issues of availability, accessibility, and affordability still exist, within those constraints, parents can find programs that have been rated and therefore can have some certainty that the program they select will help their child be prepared for kindergarten and beyond.

In addition to helping parents make informed choices, these state rating systems—called quality rating and improvement systems, or QRIS—can play a key role in supporting early childhood programs to achieve high quality. As part of a well-funded early childhood system, QRIS can provide a robust set of supports to help programs achieve and maintain quality.

Ultimately, it is these quality improvement supports that are the most important aspect of QRIS, being a key way these systems can have a direct impact on a child’s early learning experience.

Child care is unaffordable for many families, and communities across the country face a severe shortage of quality care.2 Federal and state policymakers must invest in early childhood systems to ensure that all children can access high-quality programs. This investment can ease the financial burden on families, as well as support child care providers to help them meet important health and safety requirements and improve the quality of care they provide.

In the absence of federal leadership, states are increasingly leading the charge on early learning. As part of a larger investment in the early childhood system, state policymakers should look to the role that QRIS can play in supporting providers in order to achieve higher quality and ensure that all children can access quality care.

What is a QRIS?

QRIS are state-driven frameworks designed to “assess, improve, and communicate the level of quality” in early learning programs.3 First developed in the 1990s, states have increasingly adopted QRIS in the past decade, partly due to the Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge, or RTT – ELC, which required states to include their plans to develop or improve their QRIS in grant applications.4 As of 2017, 49 states and the District of Columbia either have a statewide or regional QRIS; are engaged in a pilot phase; or are planning for QRIS—as shown in Figure 1.5

QRIS can be designed for use by all program types, including family child care homes, child care centers, and school-based programs. Participation can be tied to state licensing or the child care subsidy system, or states can make the QRIS entirely voluntary. While the specific goals of each QRIS might vary, they are designed to serve three purposes: to assess program quality; to inform parents about program quality; and to provide a mechanism for program quality improvement.6

As federal supports such as the RTT – ELC come to an end, and the prospect of future quality initiatives from the federal administration looks bleak, it is increasingly important for states to commit financial resources to their early childhood systems and, specifically, to promote high-quality programs. This requires investments in the workforce, in initiatives to expand access to high-quality programs and in quality improvement supports for programs. QRIS offer a promising framework for delivering child care and provider supports, but a lack of funding can hamper the effectiveness of QRIS as a strategy to improve quality.7 While the rating and parent information aspects are important, well-designed QRIS should direct the majority of their resources toward supporting providers to achieve and maintain quality, and they should be integrated into the wider state early childhood system.

How can QRIS help programs improve?

QRIS offer a framework within which states can deliver quality improvement supports to providers, aligning resources with shared quality standards. There are several types of supports offered through QRIS. Most systems offer financial awards and incentives, professional development opportunities, coaching, and direct technical assistance. The extent of these supports varies in each QRIS, with some systems targeting programs that enroll low-income children and others making supports universally available to all participating programs. A lack of resources often forces states to choose between universal supports that are limited in size and intensity or targeted supports that provide a more significant level of assistance to a select number of programs.

Financial awards

States can offer financial awards to programs once they achieve a certain step or tier within the rating system. These awards act as an incentive to providers to participate in the QRIS and strive for higher ratings, as well as help compensate providers for the additional costs of achieving high quality. Nearly two-thirds of states report that their QRIS offers some form of direct financial incentive or award to providers.8 These awards range from $50 to $6,500 per program and are usually used by providers to purchase materials or equipment; reward teachers; or help with general operating expenses.9 To be most effective, and to act as a true incentive, these awards need to be sufficient to help providers cover the costs of operating a high-quality program. Child care businesses operate on very tight margins, so programs rarely have excess resources available to devote to quality improvement.10

In addition to these direct financial supports, more than two-thirds of QRIS also offer tiered reimbursement, where the value of the child care subsidy payment received for each eligible child increases as the program’s quality rating increases.11 Currently, states offer increases of between 2 percent and 30 percent to the base subsidy rate for each participating child.12 As with the direct awards, in order to fully incentivize programs serving low-income families through the child care subsidy system to improve their quality, the amount of the additional reimbursement needs to reflect the higher costs providers face when they improve quality.

Professional development, coaching, and technical assistance

The workforce is critical to the quality of an early childhood program, and effective quality improvement must include direct support to teachers and program directors.13 Almost all QRIS offer coaching, mentoring, or some other form of expert consultation, either directly through a state agency or through a partnership with a resource and referral agency or with an education institution.14 This support can include working directly with teachers to improve their instructional techniques, classroom management skills, teacher-child interactions, and use of observational assessments. Technical assistance may also involve working with program leadership to guide them through the QRIS enrollment and rating process or to improve administrative practices and family engagement.15

States can also coordinate their professional development systems with their QRIS, developing a comprehensive system that crosses sectors and that is aligned with the quality standards.16 States can also offer financial supports to help providers access continuing education and training. At least one-third of QRIS offer some form of educational scholarship—either through the Teacher Education And Compensation Helps, or T.E.A.C.H., early childhood scholarship program, or a state initiative—or they provide funding to cover the cost of professional development or to reward teachers who participate in training programs.17

With more than half a million early learning providers and 2 million early childhood teachers and caregivers across the United States,18 states need to target resource-intensive supports such as coaching and technical assistance. While a new QRIS with limited participation might be able to offer in-depth technical assistance and individualized coaching to all providers, this is unsustainable for a mature QRIS with high participation rates.

How can QRIS be improved?

Despite the promise of QRIS as a mechanism to deliver quality improvement supports, a lack of financing for state early childhood systems hampers these efforts. Limited resources mean that the supports available through the QRIS are often insufficient to help providers achieve and maintain quality. Thus, providers lack a financial incentive to participate, which limits QRIS’ impact on the availability of high-quality providers. To make participation a worthwhile use of providers’ limited time, the quality improvement supports must be robust enough to have a real impact on provider quality, and providers must see a financial benefit from participation. Ultimately, this requires a significant investment in the child care system. For too long, QRIS have promised supports to improve and sustain quality, but underfunding has diminished their impact and harmed the image of QRIS as a quality improvement tool.

To fully realize the potential of QRIS, states should:

Provide sufficient and sustained funding to ensure financial incentives and quality improvement supports can help programs achieve and maintain quality

Use data to target technical assistance supports for maximum impact

Provide sufficient funding

The largest expenditure in a well-designed QRIS should be quality improvement supports. Currently, the bonus or award amount that providers receive for achieving a specified level of quality in the QRIS rarely covers the actual costs associated with increasing quality.19 Also, as a one-time payment, these awards do not support providers with the ongoing costs of operating a quality program. As a result, these awards are insufficient to make significant structural changes to a program—such as improving classroom space or purchasing outdoor play equipment—and can’t support ongoing costs, such as increased teacher salaries or hiring additional staff.

Instead these awards are most often used to make small material purchases or to boost morale through staff recognition events. While these are worthwhile uses of funds, they do not make significant and lasting impacts on the quality level of a program, nor do they improve wages for teachers or defray child care costs for parents. Teachers are a critical determinant of program quality, and personnel expenses are the largest cost driver in early childhood programs.20 To recruit and retain highly skilled teachers, high-quality programs need access to revenue sources that allow them to increase teacher pay. The financial incentives in QRIS offer a framework to increase teacher pay, but funding must be increased to achieve this goal.

Similarly, in no state is the tiered subsidy reimbursement rate tied to the actual cost of delivering a higher-quality program.21 The value of the increase is tied to the base subsidy rate, which is already far too low in most states. While federal regulations recommend setting rates at the 75th percentile of current tuition market rates, only one state sets its reimbursement rate at this level.22 The impact of tiered reimbursement is also limited by the low number of children receiving a subsidy. Almost half of all providers don’t receive any subsidy funding, and among those who do, nearly three-quarters report that less than a quarter of their enrolled children receive subsidies.23 Current tiered reimbursement rates are therefore insufficient to support programs to achieve and maintain higher quality, and rarely act as an incentive to providers to participate in a QRIS or to engage in quality improvement efforts.24

States need to increase funding for their early childhood systems and ensure that their QRIS have adequate resources to achieve their goals, including assessing programs and assigning ratings, conducting parent outreach, and providing quality improvement supports. To ensure that quality supports are sufficient, states should conduct a cost of quality study, which can determine the true cost of operating a program at different quality levels.25 The results of this study can guide redesign of financial supports to ensure that they are sufficient to achieve their purpose, covering the cost of operating at high quality, and thereby incentivizing providers to improve. A cost of quality study can also be used to set subsidy reimbursement rates to ensure that providers accepting subsidy-eligible children have adequate revenue to operate at high quality.

The impact of adequate financial supports

Financial incentives, such as quality awards and tiered subsidy reimbursement, can significantly affect the financial viability of a high-quality program. Chart 2 models the impact on net revenue at a typical child care center.26 This hypothetical center serves infants, toddlers, and preschoolers; has four classrooms; employs a teacher and teacher assistant for each classroom; and has a total capacity for 66 children. Twenty-five percent of the children are eligible for child care subsidies.

Without any financial supports, the center’s revenue from subsidy payments and tuition does not cover the cost of operating at high quality; the program operates with a deficit at higher-quality levels. With tiered subsidy reimbursement rates, the center makes a small profit at lower-quality levels. Higher tuition payments help cover the cost at the higher-quality levels. When the program has access to tiered reimbursement rates and quality awards, the program is financially sustainable at each level of quality.

Use data to target quality improvement efforts

QRIS must not operate in a silo but rather should be part of the larger early childhood state system. This means that data from the QRIS should help policymakers make informed decisions about where and how to improve access to high-quality child care.

Collecting comprehensive data can help identify the areas—both within programs and across different parts of the state—with the greatest need for quality improvement supports. Among other things, these data can be used to map provider locations, quality levels, and capacity; workforce qualifications and training; and child enrollment. A comprehensive data system can be an invaluable tool for assessing provider and family needs and ensuring that quality improvement supports are tailored to meet the various needs that exist across programs.27

While some states target their technical assistance—such as to providers serving high-need communities or those rated at lower levels of quality—almost half indicate that technical assistance supports are broadly available to all providers.28 As a result, limited resources are likely being spent inefficiently, with already high-performing programs having access to critical supports, such as coaching, at the same level as lower-performing programs. By integrating the various data systems, including workforce registries, states can analyze data and target the assistance offered through the QRIS to the teachers and programs where it can be most effective, making the best use of limited resources.

What is the role of policymakers and advocates?

First and foremost, early learning programs need increased investment. Policymakers at the federal and state level should acknowledge that access to high-quality early childhood education is a public good, with long-term benefits for children, parents, and the wider society. To provide access to affordable early learning programs for all children, investment is needed to:

Encourage the growth and development of high-quality programs, especially in underserved areas

Develop robust data systems that can identify and respond to the needs of providers and parents

Adequately support providers to fully cover the cost of operating at high quality, including increased teacher compensation

QRIS offer a framework to deliver the supports necessary to improve the quality of programs, but they can only be successful in producing significant improvements if they are resourced appropriately. A well-financed child care system should include substantial investment in QRIS, directing funds to quality improvement supports; the quality rating process itself; and a robust provider and parent outreach strategy.29

Legislators, early childhood advocates, and state administrators all have a role to play in supporting early learning programs to achieve and maintain quality.

Legislators must provide funding to support quality early learning programs. Funding for quality improvement supports should be sufficient to help programs achieve and maintain high quality. This requires committing dedicated and ongoing resources in state budgets. Quality improvement is a process and does not happen overnight. Stable and sufficient funding allows administrators to design and implement systems that will support providers on their journey to high quality.

Early childhood advocates at the state and federal levelshould support QRISas a mechanism to deliver quality improvement supports. To be sure, not all the challenges facing early childhood systems can be solved with QRIS. However, they offer a promising framework in which to target and deliver supports and a key way to engage providers and parents on the importance of quality.

State child care and QRIS administrators must ensure quality improvement is central to the design of their QRIS. While quality rating systems can have many different goals, quality improvement must be the focus. QRIS resources should primarily be spent on efforts to improve quality, including supporting the workforce. Administrators need to collect and analyze data to design a suite of quality supports that can have the most impact on provider quality. They should also develop marketing campaigns that highlight the quality improvement supports providers can access when they participate in the QRIS.

Conclusion

Achieving high quality can be a long and difficult journey. And once it is reached, maintaining that level of quality takes dedication and a significant commitment of resources. High-quality early learning programs are constantly reflecting, adjusting, and improving, and providers must be supported at each step on this journey. With sufficient investment and a clear focus on the core goal of improving quality, QRIS offer a promising framework to provide this support and to ultimately increase access to high-quality programs for all children.

Simon Workman is the Associate Director of Early Childhood Policy at the Center for American Progress.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Katie Hamm for her comments and edits on this issue brief and Rebecca Ullrich for her feedback on earlier drafts.

While Florida, California, and Kansas do not have statewide QRIS, they do have regional QRIS. For this issue brief, when reference is made to state QRIS or actions states can take related to their QRIS, it includes both state and regional QRIS. ↩

Author analysis based on data available in the QRIS Compendium, “A Catalog and Comparison of Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) Data System.” ↩

Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, Number and Characteristics of Early Care and Education (ECE) Teachers and Caregivers: Initial Findings from the National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2013), available at https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/nsece_wf_brief_102913_0.pdf. ↩

The hypothetical model is adapted from Nina Johnson and others, “Quality Costs How Much?! The Endless Possibilities of the Provider Cost of Quality Calculator and How One State Used It to Change Policy,” Presentation, (2015), available at http://qrisnetwork.org/sites/all/files/conference-session/resources/Session194PPTasPDF.pdf; , National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance, Increasing Quality in Early Care and Education Programs: Effects on Expenses and Revenues. ↩

For more information about ways workforce registries can help improve quality, see Ullrich, Hamm, and Schochet, “6 Policies to Support the Early Childhood Workforce.” ↩

]]>Cuts to Medicaid Would Harm Young Children with Disabilitieshttps://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/reports/2017/05/03/431766/cuts-medicaid-harm-young-children-disabilities/
Wed, 03 May 2017 13:01:32 +0000Rebecca Ullrichhttps://www.americanprogress.org/issues/default/reports/2017/05/02/431766//Capping federal funding for Medicaid would make it harder for children with disabilities and their families to access the supports and services they need to thrive.

]]>Kim and Rich Rankin of St. Louis, Missouri, are among the millions of Americans who are worried about what changes to Medicaid could mean for their family.1 Their 4-year-old son Nathaniel was born with birth defects, resulting in significant developmental delays and health problems. Right now, Medicaid helps cover Nathaniel’s medical supplies, surgery, and therapy, but the Rankins worry that cuts to Medicaid could mean his care soon will no longer be covered.2

Parents like the Rankins have reason to be concerned as the discussion about decreasing funding for Medicaid intensifies. Refinancing Medicaid would gut funding by putting a limit on the amount of money that the federal government contributes to states’ health care spending.3 Cuts to Medicaid would have significant implications for many children under age 5.4 However, changes to how the federal government finances Medicaid would be particularly harmful to the young children with disabilities who rely on Medicaid to help them learn and grow in their homes and communities.

Medicaid provides a lifeline for children with disabilities and their families

More than half of all children with a disability or other special health care need rely on public insurance coverage for a wide range of services and supports.5 Because Medicaid extends eligibility in multiple ways to children with disabilities, it reaches a broad range of families and children with special needs.

Compared to other children, children with disabilities are more likely to live in low-income households.6 Many qualify for Medicaid based on their families’ income alone7—without it, they would likely have no other affordable insurance options. All states—except Tennessee8—have additional disability-specific eligibility criteria, which allow some children with disabilities to qualify for Medicaid even if their parents’ income exceeds the state-established threshold.9 Five states allow certain eligible parents of children with disabilities to “buy in” to Medicaid.10 For many of these families, Medicaid is the difference between being able to comfortably access comprehensive care for their child and falling into debt due to medical expenses.

Medicaid covers comprehensive health and developmental services for children with disabilities

Children with disabilities and their families rely on Medicaid for a range of services that support their health and development. While the services covered by Medicaid reimbursement, as well as the individuals eligible for services, can vary widely from state to state, they generally include:11

Early and periodic screening, diagnostic, and treatment, or EPSDT, services: Medicaid’s EPSDT benefit ensures that children have access to preventive health care, including developmental screenings; vision, dental, and hearing services; diagnostic evaluations; and services to treat any identified physical or mental health conditions.12 States are required to cover services deemed “medically necessary” to “treat, correct or reduce” health or developmental conditions, even if those services are not otherwise covered by a state’s Medicaid plan. States determine which services are medically necessary.

Home- and community-based services: Children with intellectual and developmental disabilities who would otherwise require an institutional level of care can receive services in their homes through home- and community-based services waivers.13 The services and resources available through these waivers vary by state but can include respite care to give parents a break from caregiving, habilitative therapies, and medical equipment.

Prescription drugs: Some children’s disabilities require prescription drug treatment to eliminate or offset symptoms that affect their ability to function. Children with disabilities commonly take medication for conditions such as anxiety, hyperactivity, asthma, and seizures.14 Some disorders also make children more likely to have ear infections, eczema, gastrointestinal problems, and heart defects.15

Speech, occupational, and physical therapy: Some states may choose to cover these habilitative therapies to support children’s healthy development, help them meet developmental milestones, and support children’s participation in their schools and communities. These therapies are critical for children but are not always deemed “medically necessary” and therefore may not fall under the EPSDT benefit.16 Some children can access these services through home- and community-based service waivers.

Capping federal funds for Medicaid would be harmful to children with disabilities and their families

Reforms to Medicaid would put every Medicaid service—and the children who need them—potentially at risk. At present, the federal government covers a fixed percentage of states’ Medicaid costs—57 percent on average—meaning that states receive funding for that proportion no matter the cost of care.17 Under the financing structure known as a per capita cap, the federal government would instead pay a fixed dollar amount per person.18 Caps would differ for each subpopulation that Medicaid serves. States would then be responsible for 100 percent of any costs above this fixed amount.

Capping federal funds for Medicaid would put states under significant budgetary strain. This would have direct consequences for the services available to children with disabilities through Medicaid, as well as the other state systems that support them and their families.

Children with disabilities would lose access to health and developmental services

Because individuals with disabilities account for a large proportion of Medicaid costs,19 the federal funding caps for individuals with disabilities would presumptively be higher than for other children or for the elderly. That said, these caps would likely fall far short of the cost of providing comprehensive care for young children with special needs, and children could lose access to the services they depend on in several ways.

First, one of Medicaid’s current advantages is that it is a federal-state partnership, and states have incredible flexibility in how they choose to meet their constituents’ needs.20 There is considerable variability in how states extend their eligibility criteria beyond those required by federal regulations, as well as the types of services and resources that are eligible for reimbursement. However, under the budget constraints imposed by fixed federal funding, states could potentially use this flexibility to eliminate reimbursement for optional services.21 Many of the resources on which families of children with disabilities rely—such as costly prescription medication and habilitative therapies—are not required by the federal government and, therefore, could be among the first to go under budgetary pressures.22

Second, fixed funding may also make it harder for children with significant disabilities to receive home- and community-based services.23 While these services can be costly, they are generally preferred by families over institutions, as they allow children to remain in their homes, attend school, and participate in their communities.24 In some states, there are already enormous waiting lists to receive this type of in-home support through Medicaid waivers.25 With federal funding capped, states would be even more limited in their ability to reimburse for home- and community-based care.26

Finally, per capita caps may remove the guarantee for coverage of certain services, such as those under the early and periodic screening, diagnostic, and treatment, or EPSDT, benefit.27 Low-income children are at greater risk for disabilities and developmental delays.28 Medicaid and the EPSDT benefit help ensure that problems with children’s development are identified and addressed as early as possible. Removing the guarantee of the EPSDT benefit—or, worse, denying some low-income children health care coverage altogether—would likely mean that many more children’s developmental delays or disabilities could go unidentified and unaddressed in early childhood, leading to adverse health effects or the need for more intensive special education or therapeutic services in the future.29

Parents may be required to pay more for their children’s care

Reforms to Medicaid could cause parents to assume a larger share of the cost of their children’s care, which would have significant consequences for children’s development and their families’ economic well-being.

Most immediately, if states choose to reduce or eliminate reimbursement for habilitative services—such as speech, occupational, and physical therapy—parents would be responsible for paying for these services on their own. Therapy services can be incredibly expensive. One parent reported to CNN that the average cost of therapy for her 4-year-old son with autism was $90 per one-hour session.30 At eight sessions per week, the total cost of her son’s therapies exceeds $36,000 per year—well beyond what most families can afford without substantial help from insurance. Without support from Medicaid, the costs of therapeutic services would put significant financial strain on many families. Others may be forced to forgo these services, potentially hampering children’s developmental progress.

A recent letter from U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma31 indicates that the federal government is preparing to encourage states to increase cost-sharing and premiums for Medicaid beneficiaries. Although initially targeted at nondisabled adults, future policy changes in this direction could negatively affect families of children with disabilities. The cost burden for services that states are required to provide—such as physician visits—could then also increasingly fall on parents.

Rising costs could be financially devastating for families of children with disabilities and even put important services out of reach. They are already economically vulnerable: On top of the costs associated with specialized care, parents of children with special needs typically work fewer hours and earn less income due to their child’s increased caregiving needs.32 Nationally, 25 percent of parents of children with special health care needs report having to cut back on their hours or stop working altogether.33 One analysis found that families lose an average of $3,200 per year in wages.34 This amount is likely even higher among families of young children who are not yet in school.

Children with disabilities in some states would be permanently worse off than others

Per-person funding caps effectively lock states into the level of care they provided for a given population during the year that they are established. This means that children with disabilities who live in states offering less comprehensive benefits through their Medicaid program would be perpetually disadvantaged.35 For example, in 2011, New York spent $30,221 per Medicaid enrollee with a disability—more than four times as much as Alabama, which spent just $7,989.36

Proponents argue that Medicaid financing reform would support state flexibility, but it is well-established that Medicaid is already quite flexible.37 By basing the federal funding limit on prior-year spending levels, Medicaid refinancing minimizes states’ flexibility rather than enhancing it. For example, if states want to expand coverage to certain services to address an increasing need or public health crisis in the future, the federal government’s contribution would not expand in kind.

Early intervention and special education services would be under threat

Medicaid plays a significant role in ensuring that children with disabilities receive early intervention and special education services. Providers must attempt to use Medicaid funds to pay for health-related services for Medicaid-eligible children—such as speech, occupational, and physical therapy—before using funds from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.38 Capping federal funds poses unique threats to states’ early intervention and special education programs.

Early intervention

Part C of the IDEA provides early intervention services to eligible infants and toddlers in participating states and determines how, when, and from whom children receive early intervention services.39 At present, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have an early intervention program and receive federal funds, but most states bear a large cost burden to provide these services. Medicaid is the largest reported federal funding source for early intervention systems.40

States have long depended on Medicaid’s flexibility to continue serving vulnerable children and families—in some cases, even increasing the number of children served—as state budgets are under pressure and federal funds for IDEA Part C remain flat.41 However, if Medicaid is refinanced, declining federal funds would create a gap in early intervention funding that states would inevitably struggle to fill. States may cope with funding pressures by further narrowing their Part C eligibility criteria, imposing fees on parents, or withdrawing from Part C altogether.42

The IDEA is a discretionary grant, meaning that states can opt out of Part C and forgo IDEA funds if they choose. At least a handful of program administrators surveyed by the IDEA Infant and Toddler Coordinators Association each year report that they were asked to prepare documents that justify continuing participation in Part C.43 Given that most states already pay the majority of early intervention costs, they may choose not to continue their programs with even fewer federal resources. States that opt not to participate would no longer be required to have an early intervention program to serve infants and toddlers with developmental delays and their families.44

Special education

Part B of the IDEA guarantees children ages 3 to 21 access to special education services in their public schools.45 Similar to Part C, federal funding for Part B falls well below the cost for services, and school districts use a combination of other local, state, and federal funding sources to meet children’s needs.46 One school leader recently said that Medicaid “closes the resource gap” between the IDEA and other funding sources.47

Each year, school districts collectively rely on $4 billion to $5 billion in Medicaid funds to support special education services for children eligible for Medicaid.48 Schools use these funds to pay critical personnel such as speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists, as well as to provide assistive technology and transportation for children with special needs.49 Many schools also provide developmental screenings to students through Medicaid’s EPSDT benefit.

Under funding restrictions, schools would compete against other providers for limited Medicaid dollars. Compared to hospitals, physicians, and other health care providers, schools receive a relatively small proportion of Medicaid funds—an estimated 1 percent of total Medicaid funding as of 2014—and for that reason, they could be an easy target if state budgets were stretched thin.50 The consequences for education budgets would be devastating if Medicaid funding were significantly reduced.51

The American Association of School Administrators recently surveyed school administrators regarding the impact that a 30 percent reduction in Medicaid funding would have on their schools. Leaders reported that reduced Medicaid funding would undermine their ability to educate children with disabilities in inclusive classrooms; force them to lay off staff; and reduce the availability of mental health services in schools.52 Schools in states that receive a relatively higher proportion of Medicaid funds per student with a disability—such as Idaho, Michigan, Montana, Texas, and Wisconsin53—would be particularly affected by a reduction in Medicaid funds.

Conclusion

Rather than strengthening health care coverage for those who need it most, cutting federal funding for Medicaid would put some of the most vulnerable Americans at risk—all to provide tax breaks to the wealthy few.54 Children with disabilities and their families deserve health care coverage that supports them, enabling children to grow up healthy, meet their developmental milestones, and thrive in their schools and communities. Significant cuts to Medicaid would represent a step in the wrong direction and must be opposed.

Rebecca Ullrich is a former Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress.

States that participate in IDEA Part C are required to provide early intervention to children with developmental delays from birth through age 3. States determine the criteria for what constitutes a delay, and eligibility requirements vary significantly by state. Some states also choose to serve infants and toddlers who are considered at risk for delay. States can charge parents fees for service—and many do so on a sliding scale—but federal regulations preclude states from denying services to families if they cannot pay. For information on states’ eligibility criteria for IDEA Part C, see Sharon Ringwalt, “States’ and territories’ definitions of/criteria for IDEA Part C eligibility” (Chapel Hill, NC: Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center, 2015), available at http://ectacenter.org/~pdfs/topics/earlyid/partc_elig_table.pdf. For information on federal requirements under IDEA Part C, see Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center, “Minimum Components Required Under Part C of IDEA,” available at http://ectacenter.org/partc/componen.asp (last accessed March 2017); IDEA Infant and Toddler Coordinators Association, “Evaluation and Assessment Eligibility Regulations” (2011), available at http://www.ideainfanttoddler.org/pdf/Evaluation_and_Assessment.pdf. ↩

]]>After promising for months on the campaign trail to help ordinary Americans, President Donald Trump’s first 100 days have revealed his true policy priorities are benefitting corporations and the wealthiest few at the expense of everyone else. His actions and those of his administration have been characterized by broken promises, gross conflicts of interest, and a stark erosion of transparency, ethics, and other democratic norms. Here’s just some of the ways President Trump has hurt ordinary Americans during his first 100 days.

]]>RELEASE: How Has Trump Hurt Americans in His First 100 Days? The Center for American Progress Counts the Wayshttps://www.americanprogress.org/press/release/2017/04/26/431288/release-trump-hurt-americans-first-100-days-center-american-progress-counts-ways/
Wed, 26 Apr 2017 14:20:47 +0000https://www.americanprogress.org/press//2017/04/25/431288//Washington, D.C. — Given the hectic pace of the first 100 days of the Trump presidency, it’s easy to lose track of the many ways the new administration has, in a short period of time, inflicted harm on average Americans—including the very individuals that voted him into office. A new report released by the Center […]

]]>Washington, D.C. — Given the hectic pace of the first 100 days of the Trump presidency, it’s easy to lose track of the many ways the new administration has, in a short period of time, inflicted harm on average Americans—including the very individuals that voted him into office. A new report released by the Center for American Progress lists 100 ways that President Trump, in his first 100 days, has hurt Americans—by taking actions that benefit corporations and the wealthiest few at the expense of everyone else.

“In the first 100 days, President Trump and his administration have made America great for Wall Street, private prisons, the oil industry, and Trump’s own family—the exact type of powerful and corporate special interests that our now-president railed against while on the campaign trail,” said Ben Olinsky, Vice President of Strategy and Policy at CAP. “Gone are the campaign-trail promises and in their place are actions that have taken money out of working Americans’ wallets, ripped away health and safety protections for workers, and promoted harmful and untrue myths about immigrants—to name a few.”

]]>100 Ways, in 100 Days, that Trump Has Hurt Americanshttps://www.americanprogress.org/issues/general/news/2017/04/26/431299/100-ways-100-days-trump-hurt-americans/
Wed, 26 Apr 2017 13:01:17 +0000the Center for American Progresshttps://www.americanprogress.org/issues/default/news/2017/04/25/431299//Trump’s actions during his first 100 days in office have time and again benefitted corporations and the wealthy at the expense of ordinary Americans.

]]>After months of campaign promises to help ordinary Americans, President Donald Trump’s first 100 days have revealed that his true policy priorities are benefitting corporations and the wealthiest few at the expense of everyone else. His actions and those of his administration have been characterized by broken promises, gross conflicts of interest, and a stark erosion of transparency, ethics, and other democratic norms. As a candidate, Trump promised the American people that we were going to “… win so much, [we’ll] be sick and tired of winning.” But it is not the American people who have been winning—it is Wall Street, private prisons, the oil industry, and Trump’s own family. A recent Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans now believe that President Trump does not keep his promises and is unable to effectively manage the government.

In response to the 100-day mark—a first waypoint for measuring the progress and tone of a new administration since President Franklin D. Roosevelt—the Center for American Progress has compiled a list of the top 100 ways that the Trump administration has hurt Americans.

Economy

Raised housing payments for new homebuyers by about $500 in 2017. On its first day, the Trump administration reversed an Obama administration action to lower Federal Housing Administration, or FHA, mortgage insurance premiums for new homebuyers by 25 basis points, which could have lowered mortgage payments for 1 million households purchasing or refinancing their home this year alone.

Attacked the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule, which would have required retirement advisers to act in their clients’ best financial interest. President Trump delayed the rule’s implementation by 60 days and has ordered the department to re-evaluate the rule. This will make it much harder to save for retirement, as high fees from conflicted advice result in savers losing $17 billion in fees annually.

Delayed court proceedings on the Obama administration’s expansion of overtime, failing to defend the pro-worker rule. This rule would have raised wages for workers by $12 billion over the next 10 years and extended overtime protections to 4.2 million more Americans. In his confirmation hearings, Labor Secretary nominee Alexander Acosta suggested he would attempt to weaken the overtime rule.

Delayed enforcement of a rule to reduce workers’ exposure to deadly silica dust for three months. After more than four decades of development, this rule would protect construction and manufacturing workers from inhaling silica, which can lead to lung cancer, silicosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and kidney disease. It was projected to save more than 600 lives and prevent more than 900 new cases of silicosis each year.

Repealed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order, which ensured that federal contractors complied with worker protection laws before receiving government contracts. The order would have required companies wanting to do business with the government to disclose past labor law violations and come into compliance before receiving new contracts. Because of the repeal, millions of workers will be more vulnerable to wage theft, workplace injuries, and discrimination on the job. The order also would have protected women by banning forced arbitration in the case of sexual assault, harassment, or discrimination claims.

Supported efforts in Congress to cut taxes on the wealthy that help fund the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. As part of Congress’s effort to repeal and replace the ACA, a move that President Trump supported, the 3.8 percent net investment income tax would have been repealed at a cost of $157 billion over 10 years, according to Congressional Budget Office, or CBO. This is revenue needed to fund important programs that ensure basic human living standards and retirement security for tens of millions of working Americans. Based on Trump’s rental real estate income alone, The Wall Street Journal estimated the repeal would have saved Trump $3.2 million in taxes in 2016 alone.

Tried to cut his own taxes by millions of dollars while taking health insurance from tens of millions of Americans. Based on President Trump’s leaked 2005 Tax Return Form 1040, repealing the ACA could give Trump a personal tax cut of more than $2 million. At the same time, the House legislation to repeal the ACA would have taken health insurance from 24 million Americans.

Assembled a team of wealthy financial industry elites to advise him on tax reform, which he promised would benefit the middle class. The tax code is the tool of choice when special favors are doled out to special interests. Despite his campaign promises to drain the swamp, President Trump has assembled a band of elites to construct his tax reform plan: three former Goldman Sachs executives, Steve Mnuchin, Gary Cohn, and Steve Bannon; two more former executives from the finance industry, Justin Muzinich and Craig Phillips; and a former tax lobbyist for Fidelity Investments, Shahira Knight.

Made it harder for veterans to find jobs with a federal hiring freeze.Veterans receive a strong hiring preference for federal jobs, and roughly one-third of all newly hired federal employees in 2015 were veterans. Even if many jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, or VA, are exempt from the hiring freeze, other vacant jobs will still be unavailable at other federal agencies.

Proposed budget cuts that would devastate rural America. President Trump’s budget would eliminate programs that support rural jobs, housing, infrastructure, health care, and economic development. If implemented, these budget cuts would eliminate affordable housing for tens of thousands of struggling rural families; eliminate community service jobs for 18,000 senior citizens living in rural areas; and eliminate critical support for airline connections serving 175 small and rural communities.

Proposed dramatically slashing job training programs and worker wage and safety enforcement. President Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2018 budget could result in 2.7 million adults and youths losing access to job training and employment services in 2018.

Proposed budget cuts that would increase roadway congestion and reduce economic productivity. The budget calls for eliminating the TIGER grant program at the U.S. Department of Transportation, or USDOT, which funds innovative surface transportation projects. Additionally, the budget calls for the phased elimination of the New Starts program within the Federal Transit Administration, which funds major public transportation projects. Rail and bus rapid transit projects help to reduce roadway congestion and air pollution while spurring economic development.

Proposed budget cuts that would threaten billions in loans and investments to distressed communities. The proposed budget would eliminate the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which supports billions of dollars in financing across low-income communities, including more than $300 million in rural and Native American communities, as well as the Economic Development Administration and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, costing another $300 million or more that is annually invested in community growth. Without federal support, economic development in these locations will suffer, including small-business development.

Reneged on his promise to disclose his tax returns. President Trump’s refusal leaves Americans in the dark about whether any tax reform he proposes will benefit him or working Americans. Trump repeatedly stated before and after he was elected that he would disclose his tax returns. While initially he said he could not release them because he was being audited—a fact that does not prevent anyone from releasing their returns—his counselor, Kellyanne Conway has now said, “He’s not going to release his tax returns.”

Proposed $6.7 billion cut to housing and community support programs. President Trump’s budget would eliminate the Community Development Block Grant, which is used by 1,265 local communities for important initiatives such as Meals on Wheels, neighborhood rehabilitation, the development of affordable housing, job training, and business expansion. The Housing Choice Vouchers program will also experience deep cuts in funding, as will other programs providing supportive services for the elderly and persons with disabilities. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, about 200,000 families will no longer receive a housing voucher to pay for their rental costs and could eventually face homelessness in a housing market where there is a severe shortage of affordable housing.

Attacked neutral budget analysts so that lawmakers ignore negative effects from their policies. The Trump administration attacked the nonpartisan CBO in an attempt to preemptively discredit their estimates related to legislation repealing the ACA. These attacks continued after the CBO estimated that the House ACA repeal bill would take coverage away from 24 million Americans by 2026. This is part of a larger attempt by the Trump administration to discredit independent data and analysis in order to obscure the negative impacts that their agenda will have for working families.

Undermined investor protection by making it harder for the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, to hold Wall Street accountable. An independent and vigorous Division of Enforcement at the SEC is vital to preserving free and fair financial markets for investors. After the Bernie Madoff scandal, Obama administration SEC Chair Mary Schapiro made it easier for Division of Enforcement staff to open investigations and issue subpoenas to protect investors and get to the bottom of suspected malfeasance. Chair Michael Piwowar inexplicably rolled back this change, hindering the SEC’s ability to protect the average investor from financial wrongdoing. He has also proposed rolling back key advances in corporate transparency, including regarding human rights risks in supply chains and the pay ratio between CEOs and the median worker.

Proposed funding cuts for programs that help support and encourage small business development. President Trump’s budget cuts funding for several programs that help groups with historically low business ownership rates overcome barriers to becoming entrepreneurs, including the PRIME technical assistance grants for low-income micro-entrepreneurs; the Minority Business Development Agency, and the Economic Development Administration.

Attempted to make it harder for entrepreneurs to get access to affordable health. The ACA helps millions of entrepreneurs obtain access to health care without relying on a spouse or employer, which allows them to take one of the necessary risks associated with starting a business. The proposed American Health Care Act, or AHCA, would reduce access to health care and make it more expensive for many people to get comprehensive health care coverage.

Proposes leaving 23,000 calls for help unanswered from disaster-struck Americans. President Trump’s skinny budget proposed eliminating the Corporation for National and Community Service, which would also eliminate AmeriCorps, a vital service program that plays a critical role in mobilizing volunteers to aid with disaster preparedness and response.

Proposed slashing the WIC program. President Trump’s proposal to slash funding for the WIC program puts basic food security at risk for thousands of families. At an annual food cost of about $513 per person, the $200 million cut could help pay for a year’s worth of food and formula for nearly 390,000 participating women, children and infants.

Proposed elimination of theHOME Investment Partnerships Program. To date, HOME has helped more that 1.2 million families gain access to safe and affordable housing. But this successful program is also on President Trump’s budget chopping block, thereby threatening housing security for thousands of families.

Proposed eliminating NeighborWorks America. NeighborWorks America provides grants to community development organizations that help build and maintain affordable housing. The program created 53,649 jobs and assisted 360,009 families with affordable housing in the last year alone.

Environment and energy

Proposed cuts to energy programs that save people money. The Trump budget blueprint calls for a 5.6 percent cut overall to the U.S. Department of Energy. This cut, along with calls for additional funding to nuclear security and waste cleanup, mean that there will be steeper cuts for programs designed to develop household appliances that save families money. President Trump’s budget proposal also eliminates programs such as ARPA-E, which helps entrepreneurs develop clean, affordable energy, and the Weatherization Assistance Program, which upgrades the homes of low-income families with insulation and cost-effective energy efficient improvements to help reduce utility bills.

Allowed a dangerous pesticide to stay on the market, despite it being a threat to children’s health. Chlorpyrifos a common agricultural pesticide that causes neurological harm in children exposed in utero. In 2016, the EPA’s scientists concluded that the agency should ban chlorpyrifos after finding unsafe levels of the chemical on apples, peaches, oranges, strawberries, and other fruits. Dow Chemical, one of the largest producers of products using this chemical, gave $1 million to President Trump’s inauguration committee and leads a presidential advisory committee on manufacturing. On March 28, Trump’s EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the findings of the agency’s scientists, denied a petition to ban the chemical, and delayed further action until 2022.

Eliminated pollution standards for power plants and oil and gas facilities. In his final term, President Obama established the first-ever carbon pollution standards for power plants and the first-ever methane standards for oil and gas drilling facilities. These standards would have reduced soot- and smog-forming pollutants that trigger asthma attacks and cut emissions of carbon and other gases that cause climate change. On March 28, President Trump signed an executive order that started the process of nullifying these pollution standards and making it harder for future presidents to put them back in place.

Proposed cutting EPA programs to clean up water sources. In February, President Trump proposed a budget for the EPA that would cut the agency’s funding by 31 percent and its staff by one-quarter. The president’s proposal targets several popular programs, such as regional efforts to clean up the Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, and other iconic bodies of water.

Proposed eliminating programs at the EPA dedicated to preventing children’s exposure to lead-based paint, which can cause neurological delays. An estimated 38 million U.S. homes contain lead-based paint, and in 2015, the Centers for Disease Control found that 243,000 children had elevated levels of lead in their blood. Lead is a neurotoxin that causes permanent nerve damage.

Rolled back important protections for drinking water in coal communities. One of the Trump administration’s first actions was to nix the Stream Protection Rule put in place by the Obama administration to prevent coal companies from polluting nearby streams. Scrapping this environmental protection was a top priority of the coal industry at the expense of clean drinking water in coal communities.

Repealed anti-bribery rule to the delight of the oil industry. President Trump eliminated an anti-corruption rule that had required oil and gas companies to disclose payments to foreign governments. When he was still the CEO of Exxon Mobil, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had lobbied to remove the rules established under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Ripped off American taxpayers and avoided fixing the broken federal coal-leasing program. The Trump administration moved to preserve a loophole the Obama administration closed that allows coal companies to rip off taxpayers by allowing them to sell coal mined on federal lands to their own subsidiaries at artificially low prices and shirk royalty payment responsibilities.

Halted the first comprehensive review of the federal coal program in more than 30 years while simultaneously opening public lands for new leases to mine coal. Federal coal lease sales only bring in, on average, $1 per ton in bids, and taxpayers are estimated to be losing $1 billion annually in lost royalty payments on undervalued coal sales.

Proposed major cuts to the Department of the Interior’s budget that would impair critical maintenance of our national parks while making a public show of supporting them. A few weeks after proposing to cut $1.5 billion, or 12 percent, from the Department of the Interior’s budget, President Trump had Press Secretary Sean Spicer ceremoniously hand a $78,000 check—Trump’s first-quarter earnings—to Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to help the National Park Service. Here’s the rub: Trump’s check only covers 0.01 percent of $1.3 billion in “critical systems deferred maintenance” that the National Park Service urgently needs.

Pulled the rug from under private investors backing conservation efforts. As part of a sweeping executive order aimed at gutting actions the Obama administration took to address climate change, President Trump rescinded the presidential memorandum that encouraged private investment when developers work to mitigate impacts on natural resources. This action undercuts the economic and environmental gains that the fast-growing restoration industry has made recently to the tune of $1.15 billion between 2014 and 2015 in private capital invested in habitat conservation and water management. These relatively new environmental marketplaces rely on regulatory consistency that President Obama’s memorandum bolstered.

Declared open season on baby bears and wolves in wildlife refuges. President Trump overturned a rule that had protected black bear mothers and their cubs from being hunted in their dens. The Obama administration’s “Fair Chase” rule, which applied to national wildlife refuges in Alaska, also limited baiting, trapping, and the use of aircrafts to track and shoot bears and wolves.

Moved to weaken air quality standards for ozone. Ozone pollution is a key contributor to smog, which can cause more frequent asthma attacks and exacerbate lung diseases. President Trump’s EPA is moving toward changing air quality standards established under the Obama administration to allow greater ozone pollution. Ground level ozone pollution can increase the frequency of asthma attacks, cause shortness of breath, aggravate lung diseases, and cause permanent damage to lungs through long-term exposure. Elevated ozone levels are linked to increases in hospitalizations, emergency room visits, and premature death, and can cause pronounced health impacts in children and the elderly.

Signed an executive order nullifying the “social cost of carbon.” President Trump essentially determined that climate change has no cost by eliminating a critical metric used to measure the benefit of cutting carbon pollution.

Stopped rules that would limit dumping toxins from power plants. Trump’s EPA is stopping rules that would limit the dumping of toxins, such as mercury and arsenic, and pollution from power plants into public waterways. These would have been the first protections in more than 30 years to curb toxins and other pollutants in power plants.

Changed standards to protect water and wildlife from lead poisoning. Hours after riding a horse to his first day on the job, Secretary of the Interior Zinke reversed a ban on using lead bullets for hunting in wildlife refuses. Lead content in these bullets can poison water and wildlife.

Opened the door to reducing methane pollution standards. The president signed an executive order directing the EPA and the Bureau of Land Management to review the methane pollution standards for oil and gas drilling facilities and determine whether to rescind or revise them. Methane pollution supercharges global warming 86 times as much as carbon pollution.

Took steps to reverse progress to date on U.S. preparations for climate change. President Trump signed an executive order rescinding previous executive orders related to preparing the U.S. for climate change; encouraging private investment in efforts to mitigate pollution; and ensuring our national security plans consider climate change impacts.

Nominated an EPA administrator who denies scientific proof of climate change. EPA Administrator Pruitt told the media that he does not think carbon dioxide is the primary contributor to climate change. His statement is the climate science equivalent of saying the world is flat.

Proposed budget cuts to that will cause 5.7 millionlow-income residents to lose assistance with their heating bills and about 673,000 to lose cooling assistance. President Trump’s proposal to eliminate the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, will be especially dangerous as more states experience extreme weather.

Democracy and government reform

Imperiled American voters with untrue claims about illegal voting. President Trump’s empty claims of widespread fraud undermine the integrity of our elections and lay the basis for voter suppression efforts that attack our constitutional right to participate in self-government. When government officials spread lies that call into question the legitimacy of our elections, people lose faith in the democratic process. Instead of responding to the clear and present dangers of foreign interference and discriminatory efforts to keep some American citizens from casting their ballots, Trump chooses to spread baseless slander while calling for a witch hunt against American voters.

Brought pay-to-play corruption to the presidency. The Trump family continues to promote their private business interests at home and abroad while profiting off of the presidency. Corruption, or even the appearance of corruption, diminishes trust in government and increases cynicism toward democratic institutions. At a time when 75 percent of Americans already believe that corruption is widespread in government, President Trump’s blatant disregard for ethics rules and constitutional prohibitions on presidential enrichment further undermine democratic norms and threatens our democracy, economy, and national security.

Undermined transparency and accountability by continuing to hide his tax returns and withholding White House visitor logs. Due to his refusal to release his tax returns the full extent of President Trump’s indebtedness and foreign entanglements remains unknown. As a result, Americans cannot be sure that Trump is not providing favors and special treatment to his business partners or that foreign states and businesses are not leveraging influence over the Trump administration and its decisions. It is impossible for Trump to lead an effort to revise the tax code without Americans knowing how his proposals would line his own pocket. Changing the practice to stop disclosing White House visitor logs prevents the public from knowing who is accessing federal officials on a daily basis and keeps special interest influence shrouded in secrecy.

Immigration

Signed two Muslim and refugee bans, both of which have been enjoined by federal courts. In January, and then again in March, President Trump signed executive orders banning immigrants from seven—and then, subsequently, six—Muslim-majority nations for at least three months and halting the refugee program for four months. The January executive order sparked widespread protests at airports all across the country and was quickly blocked by a federal court in Washington state and then by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In early March, Trump signed a barely revised version of the original order, which courts in Hawaii and Maryland rightly acknowledged still constituted a Muslim and refugee ban. The core parts of the ban were once again put on hold.

Made every unauthorized immigrant a deportation priority, regardless of equities. As a matter of the smart prioritization of resources, the Obama administration focused its immigration enforcement on serious threats to national security and public safety, as well as recent border crossers. Within days of taking office, Trump signed an executive order eliminating the Obama priorities, effectively making all unauthorized immigrants a priority for deportation, regardless of how long they have been in the country, their ties to families and communities, or other equities. In practice, this has meant that people like Guadalupe García de Rayos, a mother of two from Arizona who has been in the U.S. for over two decades, and Maribel Trujillo Diaz, a mother of four U.S.-born children have been deported.

Made immigrant survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault afraid to turn to law enforcement for help. Aggressive immigration enforcement by the Trump administration—including a case in El Paso, where immigration officials arrested a victim of domestic abuse at a courthouse after she received a protective order against her abuser—has made immigrants and Latinos, regardless of immigration status, increasingly reluctant to come forward to report crimes. Prosecutors in Denver have been forced to drop four domestic violence prosecutions because immigrant victims no longer wish to cooperate. Another domestic violence case in Austin hangs in limbo under similar circumstances. Since last year, Los Angeles has seen reports by Latinos of sexual assault decline by 25 percent, and Houston has seen reports by Latinos of rapes decline by nearly 43 percent. By making everyone a priority, the administration has made no one a priority to the detriment of public safety.

Arrested multiple recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Even though Trump has said that he will deal with young unauthorized immigrants with “great heart,” and even though Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly has said that he is “the best thing that happened to DACA,” the Department of Homeland Security has detained at least five recipients of DACA—which grants eligible young people a two-year reprieve from deportation and a work permit—since taking office. The detained include Daniela Vargas, Daniel Ramirez, Edwin Romero, Josue Romero, and Francisco Rodriguez. It is now also being reported that the Department of Homeland Security deported Dreamer Juan Manuel Montes while he was protected from deportation through DACA.

Scared authorized immigrants away from accessing benefits and necessary health care for which they and their children are eligible. Not long after the Trump administration took office, a draft executive order leaked, illustrating that the administration was looking to target even legal immigrants living in the United States. Among other provisions, the draft order would make lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, eligible for deportation if they use any type of means-tested benefit. The mere possibility of the order, as well as increased immigration enforcement, has had a chilling effect on communities across the nation. In California, for example, the Alameda County Community Food Bank saw 40 families cancel their food stamps and another 54 eligible families choose not to apply for food stamps. Other reports indicate that some immigrants are taking their names off of the list to receive baby formula or keeping children away from child care centers.

Faith

Trampled on the religious liberty of Muslims with his attempts at unconstitutional travel bans. President Trump’s January 27 executive action on refugees and revised March 6 executive action both aimed to prohibit travel to the United States for nationals of Muslim-majority nations and fundamentally reshape the refugee admissions program to prioritize the claims of Christians. Trumps actions have alienated the Muslims communities not only within the United States but also around the world, damaging critical relationships with national security allies.

Promises to destroy the Johnson Amendment, which prevents nonprofit organizations—including houses of worship—from endorsing political candidates. A leaked draft executive order indicates plans to insert religious exemptions in federal nondiscrimination protections, revealing a pattern of attempts to redefine the foundational value of religious freedom so it will only protect people of faith who share conservative Christian beliefs.

Gun violence prevention

Signed a law that weakens the firearms background check system and undermines enforcement of the current law that prohibits certain individuals with a serious mental illness from gun possession. Using the shortcut process of the Congressional Review Act, President Trump repealed a Social Security Administration regulation that formalized the process by which the agency could provide to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, the names of beneficiaries who—because of serious mental illness—are prohibited from gun possession under federal law. This action represents a significant step backward from recent efforts at the federal and state level to better enforce current law by ensuring that all records of prohibited purchasers are provided to NICS.

Made it easier for fugitives to buy guns. Under federal law, anyone who is “a fugitive from justice” is prohibited from buying and possessing guns. Since at least 2006, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives have disagreed over the proper scope of this law, with the FBI adopting a position that it applies to all individuals with an outstanding arrest warrant while the ATF argued for a narrower interpretation that it applies only to individuals who had left the state where the warrant was issued. Because the FBI is the agency that operates the background check system, that agency’s interpretation prevailed. However, in February 2017, the Department of Justice issued new guidance resolving this dispute by adopting ATF’s interpretation and dramatically narrowing the category of individuals with active criminal warrants who will be prohibited from buying guns.

Health care

Attempted to repeal the ACA. Repeal of the ACA would cause significant stress and anxiety for millions of families who rely on it for coverage. The AHCA would have resulted in 24 million more people being uninsured in 10 years—breaking President Trump’s promise to cover “everybody.” It would also have broken Trump’s campaign promise not to cut Medicaid.

Undermined the ACA marketplace. The Trump administration has already undermined the ACA marketplace by refusing to officially abandon its efforts to repeal the law. In addition, its refusal to commit unequivocally to paying the cost-sharing reduction subsidies is generating massive uncertainty for insurers. This uncertainty is having a direct impact on the marketplace by encouraging insurers to quit the market in 2018 or raise premiums.

Began to undermine Medicaid. In a letter to governors by Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma, the administration encouraged states to pursue harmful changes to their Medicaid programs, including work requirements and increased cost-sharing.

Made ACA marketplace enrollment more difficult. In the final days of the most recent open enrollment period, the Trump administration cancelled Healthcare.gov TV ads and email outreach, which are critical in helping people remember the deadline and enroll in time. Although some of this was restored after a backlash, a former Healthcare.gov chief marketing officer estimated that the administration’s actions reduced enrollment by 480,000 people.

Stripped Title X funding. With Vice President Mike Pence’s tie-breaking vote, the Senate voted to overturn Obama era protections for Title X providers. Trump signed the bill, which allows states to block Title X funding. Title X funding provides critical reproductive, educational, and counseling services related to family planning and contraception to 4 million clients each year.

Reinstated the Global Gag Rule. One of Trump’s first actions as president was to reinstate the Global Gag Rule, which prevents recipients of U.S. foreign aid from offering any information, referrals, services, or advocacy regarding abortion care—even if they do so with separate funding sources. The Global Gag Rule will lead to more maternal deaths, more unintended pregnancies, and higher rates of unsafe abortion.

Proposed cutting funds for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.The Trump budget proposes a $50 million reduction in funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, which works with organizations across the United States to implement evidence based, proven programming.

Higher education

Proposed deep cuts to programs that help make college more accessible and affordable for low-income students and students of color.President Trump’s budget proposed more than $5 billion in cuts to valuable programs, including the Pell Grant program and the work-study program, which provide needed funds to help low-income students afford the rising cost of college. The cuts also target important college-access programs—including TRIO and GEAR UP—that provide supports such as tutoring, mentoring, and research opportunities to low-income and first-generation students.

Rescinded protections for student loan borrowers. On March 16, the Trump administration withdrew measures to protect struggling student loan borrowers and made repayment more difficult by allowing debt collectors to charge a 16 percent fee—even when the borrower agrees to make good on their debt within 60 days. On April 11, the Trump administration stripped away important measures that would hold student loan servicers accountable when their actions are not in the best interest of students. It has been well-documented that servicers sometimes place borrowers in repayment programs that could ultimately make it more difficult for them to repay their debt.

Failed to help students when a critical resource for financial aid and loan repayment was shut down. In March 2017, with no advance warning, the IRS and U.S. Department of Education disabled a key web-based tool that helps millions of students apply for aid and repay their loans. Failure to notify students put financial aid applicants at risk of losing access to grant aid that helps pay for college and put student loan borrowers at risk of seeing their payments jump by hundreds of dollars.

Endangered students by appointing for-profit college officials to top positions. Robert Eitel, senior counselor to Secretary of Education DeVos, joined the administration well before he even left his job at Bridgepoint Education—a for-profit college company facing multiple federal investigations. And Taylor Hansen, a former lobbyist for for-profit colleges—whose father’s student loan debt-collection company sued the Obama administration—served on the department’s “beachhead” team.

Undercut students’ civil rights by naming skeptics to top civil rights positions. The nominee to serve as general counsel in the Department of Education, Carlos Muñiz, defended Florida State University against allegations that it protected a star quarterback from rape charges. And the new head of the Office for Civil Rights, Candice Jackson, has claimed she experienced discrimination for being white and called the women who accused President Trump of assault and harassment “fake victims.”

K-12 education

Proposed completely eliminating federal funding for after-school programs. In President Trump’s budget, the administration zeroed out the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which provides $1.2 billion to districts across the country for after-school programs that support students and working families. This funding serves more than 1.6 million students participating in these programs.

Proposed completely eliminating federal funding to support teacher quality. In President Trump’s budget, the administration zeroed out Title II of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which provides $2.4 billion to states and districts for teacher recruitment, training, retention, and support. This cut translates to a loss of 40,000 teacher salaries.

Nominated the highly unqualified and anti-public school Betsy DeVos as secretary of education. DeVos’s only experience with education is as a lobbyist and megadonor pushing private school voucher schemes in states across the country. Instead of working to support public schools and the students that attend these schools, she has called public education a “dead end.”

Rescinded the Obama administration’s regulations that supported school accountability under the new Every Student Succeeds Act. Through the Congressional Review Act, Congress and President Trump eliminated key protections and guidance for states and districts to implement the law, leaving significant confusion at the state and local level. The Trump administration has also signaled that it will take a very lax enforcement stance with states, opening the door for states to ignore their responsibilities to protect vulnerable students.

Rescinded the Obama administration’s regulations that supported improving teacher preparation programs. Through the Congressional Review Act, Congress and Trump eliminated requirements for states to make sure that teacher preparation programs are helping prospective teachers gain the skills needed to be successful in the classroom and support student learning. Without these regulations, states will continue to struggle to improve teacher preparation programs and support the most effective programs.

Proposed cutting $9 billion from public education while spending $1.4 billion on school choice. This proposal includes harmful private school voucher schemes and the creation of a new $250 million federal program that will allow taxpayer dollars to flow to private schools, which are not accountable; can discriminate in admissions and discipline; and are not subject to basic monitoring, oversight, and civil rights laws.

Proposed cutting crucial support for school reform efforts. By zeroing out support for the AmeriCorps program, President Trump would undercut many of the most successful education organizations—from KIPP Public Charter Schools, to Teach For America, to City Year—that have had positive effects on students across the country and rely on that program.

Justice

Named Jeff Sessions, a long-time opponent of civil rights, as attorney general, the top law enforcer in the nation. Sessions co-sponsored the First Amendment Defense Act, a draconian measure that prohibits the federal government from taking “discriminatory action” against any business or person that discriminates against LGBTQ people. The act aims to protect the right of all entities to refuse service to LGBTQ people based on two sets of religious beliefs: “(1) marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or (2) sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.” As a federal prosecutor in 1983, Sessions prosecuted a trio of voting rights activists for voter fraud. As the chief enforcer of the civil rights laws of the United States, it is almost impossible to imagine how he will now protect the very community for which he endorsed discrimination.

Appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch—a judge with a long record of ruling against the rights of workers, women, and students with disabilities—to the Supreme Court. Justice Gorsuch will rule on fundamental constitutional issues—including civil rights, the role of money in politics, and reproductive rights. For example, he will soon vote on whether the Court should allow North Carolina’s 2013 voting bill—which a lower court said targeted black voters with “almost surgical precision”—to remain in effect.

Undermined the legitimacy of the court system. As a candidate and as president, Trump has attackedjudges whose rulings he does not like and undermined the legitimacy of these courts. He called a judge who ruled against his discriminatory Muslim ban a “so-called judge.” During the campaign, he said that a Mexican-American judge could not be impartial in a lawsuit against Trump due to his ethnicity. These attacks on the third branch of government undermine the founders’ separation of powers as well as the very rule of law.

Proposed eliminating the Legal Services Corporation. Already scarce access to justice will be put even further out of reach for 60.6 million low-income Americans under President Trump’s proposal to eliminate the Legal Services Corporation—the nation’s main funding stream for civil legal services.

Tried but failed to stop Baltimore police reform efforts. Attorney General Sessions asked a court at the last minute not to accept a consent decree that was supported by the Baltimore police commissioner, mayor, community members, and career Department of Justice attorneys. The federal court rejected Sessions’ motion, allowing needed police reforms that would build trust between the police and the communities they serve to proceed.

Attempted to bring back the war on drugs. The outdated strategy was ineffective and caused long-term devastation to thousands of families. Attorney General Sessions is implementing a tough-on-crime approach that would increase federal prosecutions and long prison sentences even for low-level, nonviolent offenders. Even as the Trump administration pushes outdated law-and-order policies, Democratic and Republican governors are making progress on sentencing reform, drug treatment, and alternatives to incarceration.

Supported outdated and ineffective criminal justice reforms that have a disproportionate impact on communities of color. Attorney General Sessions should be focusing on the need for police reform; supporting innovative crime-reduction strategies; and ensuring drug treatment and alternatives to incarceration are available. Yet, instead, he has ordered a review of current pattern and practice cases of police misconduct where evidence and a clear record has shown a police department has acted with systemic misconduct. He has also questioned decades of research and science rejecting a tough-on-crime approach.

Reversed the Obama era Department of Justice’s order to stop contracting with private prison facilities. Private prisons create a perverse incentive to incarcerate more people since these companies are motivated to increase profit, which is generated only if there are more inmates filling their facilities. Private prisons that contracted with the Department of Justice were found by the department itself to be less efficient and have more issues with security and management.

Racial justice

Supported economic policies that are detrimental to communities of color. Many of the budget cuts proposed by President Trump would cut key social service programs. For example, 41 percent of the 9 million Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, recipients are people of color. The budget also eliminates the Minority Business Development Agency, which promotes business development for people of color—the fastest growing segment of the population.

Supported education policies that do not support students of color. The Trump administration supports cuts to Pell Grants and tuition assistance programs as well as cuts to after-school programs that would affect 1 in 4 African American students. The administration also supports voucher programs that do not encourage the success of students of color.

Pushed environmental policies that will negatively affect communities of color. As noted above, the EPA wants to eradicate programs dedicated to reducing exposure to lead paint, which disproportionately affects communities of color. The EPA is also cutting funding for the environmental justice office that had just been set up to specifically deal with lead, pollution, and other issues facing communities of color.

LGBTQ

Turned a blind eye to illegal anti-transgender discrimination in schools. The Trump administration revoked Title IX guidance issued by the Department of Education clarifying schools’ long-standing obligations under federal civil rights law to treat transgender students equally and with dignity. Transgender students face pervasive harassment and discrimination in schools, impeding these students’ ability to learn. Nearly 1 in 6 out transgender K-12 students have been forced to leave school because of this harassment.

Erased LGBTQ people from federal surveys, making it impossible to know if government programs serve them fairly. The Trump administration removed questions about LGBTQ people from key federal surveys about programs that serve seniors and people with disabilities, without which policymakers and advocates cannot ensure LGBTQ people have equal access to key government services such as Meals on Wheels. The administration also appears to have included—but then gone back and omitted—questions about LGBTQ people from the American Community Survey, an annual survey that gathers information about Americans’ educational attainment, housing, and health coverage.

Appointed longtime opponents of LGBTQ rights—including members of anti-LGBTQ hate groups—to key administration positions. Many of President Trump’s appointees, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, made their careers standing in the way of LGBTQ rights—and now, they’re in charge of agencies that enforce those very rights. The appointments get even more disturbing the closer you look: Trump tapped Ken Blackwell, a former fellow at an anti-LGBTQ hate group, as a domestic policy adviser; selected leaders of the hate group C-FAM for the president’s delegation to the United Nations; and appointed Roger Severino, a longtime opponent of transgender civil rights, to run the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights.

Proposed slashing funding for research to cure HIV/AIDS. President Trump has proposed devastating cuts to health research, including $6 billion in cuts to the National Institutes of Health in the budget and a $50 million cut to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s HIV research and prevention programs. The administration has also pushed a $300 million cut to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR—an extraordinarily successful program that provides lifesaving treatment to 11.5 million people worldwide and has broad bipartisan support.

Barred refugees and asylum seekers fleeing anti-LGBTQ persecution from protection in the United States. President Trump’s refugee suspension blocked LGBTQ Syrian and Iraqi refugees from finding protection in the United States, leaving them stranded in countries where they are persecuted. His policy of detaining all immigrants who enter at the southern border and expanding the populations targeted for deportation traps LGBTQ asylum seekers in dangerous immigrant detention facilities and increases the risk that they will be wrongly deported to countries where their lives are at risk. The administration also decided to close the only dedicated transgender immigrant detention pod in the country, leaving transgender immigrants in detention at risk.

National security

Made Americans less safe from the Islamic State, or IS. The anti-Muslim bigotry of the Trump administration makes every American less safe by helping IS and other terrorist groups recruit followers. As one IS commander in Afghanistan put it, the Trump administration’s “utter hate towards Muslims will make our job much easier because we can recruit thousands.” The original Muslim ban included Iraq, where Iraqi soldier fighting alongside U.S. forces against IS called it a “betrayal.”

Made Americans more vulnerable to pandemic diseases such as Zika and Ebola. Massive cuts in aid, diplomacy, and health proposed in President Trump’s FY 2017 budget would end the Global Health Security account, which works to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks around the world, including Ebola. In his proposed budget, Trump has also called for the elimination of funding for the Fogarty International Center, which supports global health research initiatives, including for infectious diseases research in developing countries.

Undermined American jobs and security by ceding global leadership to Beijing. President Trump has taken no actions to achieve more balanced trade with China. He recklessly toyed with overturning nearly 40 years of official policy recognizing “one China” but backed down during his first call with the Chinese president, showing that his threats were hollow. Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson claimed they would stop China from building on disputed islands in the South China Sea, but China proceeds to do what it wants, where it wants. Trump’s summit with President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago resort resulted in no progress on any difficult issues. Beijing sees Washington as hot air with little substance. Trump’s all talk, no action approach is encouraging repression over freedom and making authoritarian leaders confident that repression will be tolerated.

Oversaw an increase in civilian deaths from U.S. military operations. After years of decline, civilian deaths from U.S. military operations have surged under Trump, destroying families, undermining strategic aims, and providing a propaganda boon to U.S. enemies. U.S. military spokesperson Col. Joseph Scrocca said “[More civilian casualties] is probably detrimental to the strength of our coalition. And that’s exactly what ISIS is trying to target right now.” Civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria have spiked in 2017, already far surpassing the total for all of 2016. Trump’s first major raid as president, in Yemen in January, was decided over dinner in the White House—far outside the regular process—and resulted in dozens of civilian deaths.

Threatened national security and hurt the integrity of America’s democracy by an ongoing lack of transparency and refusal to disclose details about his finances and ties to Russia. Americans cannot know who President Trump might owe money or what obligations or commitment he and his team could have to Russia or other foreign powers. Trump’s refusal to condemn the Russian government’s interference in the 2016 elections; release his tax returns; step away from his business; and support an independent commission and special counsel to get to the bottom of Russia’s influence over the 2016 election are a green light to Russians and others who want to meddle in U.S. democracy. All Americans from all political parties are vulnerable when foreign influence, money, and hacking can run roughshod though America’s democratic institutions.

This list is just a sample of the ways in which President Trump and his administration have already broken their promises to Americans and revealed their true priorities. As this list grows, real damage is being done to communities and working families across the nation. Trump should heed their calls to put the needs of ordinary Americans ahead of corporations and the wealthy.

]]>STATEMENT: CAP’s Neera Tanden Praises de Blasio’s “3-K for All” Announcementhttps://www.americanprogress.org/press/statement/2017/04/25/431123/statement-caps-neera-tanden-praises-de-blasios-3-k-announcement/
Tue, 25 Apr 2017 14:41:18 +0000https://www.americanprogress.org/press//2017/04/24/431123//Washington — Neera Tanden, President of the Center for American Progress, issued the statement below following New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s (D) announcement that he will expand free, full-day preschool for every 3-year-old in New York City. “Mayor de Blasio’s announcement is great news for families across New York City, helping tackle inequality and […]

]]>Washington — Neera Tanden, President of the Center for American Progress, issued the statement below following New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s (D) announcement that he will expand free, full-day preschool for every 3-year-old in New York City.

“Mayor de Blasio’s announcement is great news for families across New York City, helping tackle inequality and level the playing field for children, no matter what neighborhood they grow up in. Study after study repeatedly shows that investing in high-quality child care and education between ages 0 and 5 has a lasting impact on an individual’s ability to learn and thrive. Mayor de Blasio’s plan will not only help New York City’s families make the most of this critical moment in their children’s development, but also save them thousands of dollars and give them greater workplace flexibility.

“Cities and states across the country should take note of New York City’s progressive and critical investment in our future’s most valuable asset: our children.”